Chapter 91
My aunt was standing there, and the writer who was standing next to my aunt gestured towards me. It was as if she was signaling me to save her. I walked toward them, and the writer said, “Ah, I hope you have a good time with your family. Hahaha,” and left like she was making a quick escape.
Seeing her response, I could easily tell how my aunt acted. She probably spewed out curses while asking where I was.
I looked at my aunt again. She was wearing loose-fitting, dark clothes to hide the weight she gained over the years. She had a big pearl necklace like she always did, a heavy coat of makeup, and eyeliner that stretched out ferociously upward. She was just as I remembered though she aged a bit.
On the other hand, my aunt looked at me quite startled. It was understandable since I was only about 170 cm when I left the house and had now grown to 184 cm. I looked down at my aunt without saying a word.
‘Was she always this small?’ I wondered. In the past, she probably would have clutched my hair first, but now the top of my head was no longer in her reach.
And as I continued to look down at her wordlessly, she asked with great annoyance, “How dare you look at your elder so insolently? Shouldn’t you greet your aunt? What are you standing like a fool for? Where are your manners?”
Since she didn’t have the stamina and strength to hit me anymore, it seemed she was trying to attack me with her words. But these were comments that a middle-aged woman might have said to another middle-aged woman while fighting. I had been slightly afraid before meeting her, but now that I was meeting her, I only felt astonishment and boredom.
‘Ha, seriously?’ I thought. “Let’s go,” I said. Thus, I didn’t reply to her provocations and began moving away.
“Hey! Bong Tae-Yoon! Who talks to their aunt like that? Hmph!” My aunt became enraged immediately. It seemed her blood pressure rose after seeing me ignore her in person. It must have been more surprising to her because when I was living in her house, I had always been a timid and obedient boy who was at her beck and call.
“Stand here properly before I count to three,” she said and treated me as if I was still a young child who trembled in fear at her every word.
“You follow me instead of standing there,” I said.
But I was no longer afraid of her. Uncaring about how she reacted, I went on my way. It was her loss if she didn’t follow me and after today, I had absolutely no intention of meeting her again. Furthermore, I wanted to leave this situation as fast as possible before my group members caught sight of me.
Since this place was right at the entrance of the lodging place, my members could see me at any moment. Thus, I walked for about thirty seconds without turning back even once and soon heard my aunt follow me from behind.
‘Unbelievable.’ I almost laughed in bafflement but continued to go straight. Since there was only one café in this vicinity, I planned to go there.
***
I opened the café door and went inside. My aunt also entered the store following me, and I surveyed my surroundings. The place looked identical to the one I saw through my Precognitive Vision. And though I didn’t realize it in my vision, it looked like quite an old café in real life. The first thing I did when I entered was check the CCTV locations first. There was one toward the counter and one at the center of the hall–a total of two CCTVs.
‘Well, this is good.’ I had been worried that there would be no cameras and felt relieved to find two. My aunt was already in her seat. She didn’t want to pay for her coffee but that was all within my expectations.
Thus, I ordered, “Two glasses of iced americano please.”
“All right. Thank you.” The waiter who took my order was an old man.
‘This is good.’ I didn’t have to worry about him spreading rumors after coming out of here. I waited until the americanos came out and took the drinks. Naturally, I ordered an iced americano in case my aunt splashed her drink on my face, and I also turned on my phone’s recording function.
“Why did you drag me all the way here? Is there that much you have to say?” my aunt said. Every word this woman said was aggravating.
“First of all, how did you come all the way here? Didn’t I say that I would contact you first?” I asked what I was curious about first.
“I made a bit of a fuss at the broadcasting set. What about it?”
“Not at my agency?”
“Ah don’t even mention it! It infuriates me every time I think about those young bitches in your agency! Those crazy…” As soon as I mentioned my company, my aunt cursed Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna. To summarize what she said, it seemed those two hadn’t revealed information about me to the very end no matter how much trouble my aunt caused.
“But I suppose the broadcasting crew couldn’t stop her either,’ I thought. This crazy lady seemed to have found out The Showcase 2’s phone number after finding out that she couldn’t reach me through the agency.
‘Haa. Seriously.’ I already predicted that she would come find me, but I didn’t feel good that many people seemed to have been troubled because of me.
“So, why did you come to see me?” I got to the main point.
“Give me some money,” and my aunt immediately replied without circling around too.
I glared at my aunt and replied, “Why? I don’t owe you anything.”
“What about the fact that I fed you and took care of you all those years?”
“Didn’t I say this before? You just gave me some leftovers and gave me a corner to sleep on. How can you say that you took care of me with just that? You don’t even treat a dog like that.”
“There are plenty of kids who don’t even have that. You should just be grateful that I took you in. You damn…” Then, she went on another parade of insults. I drank a sip of my coffee and let her words flow in one ear and out the other.
“I don’t have money,” I told her again.
“I heard celebrities earn a couple hundred and thousands per episode.”
“That’s only for famous people.”
“I heard idols earn loads though.”
“I didn’t even debut yet.”
“Stop pretending you’re poor and give me your money. Why are you acting like you don’t have anything when you do?”
“Haaa.” Common logic didn’t work on someone like her. Unlike what she said, I really didn’t have any money. She must’ve heard some false information from here and there but it simply wasn’t true.
“Do you want to take a look at my bank account? I really don’t have anything.”
“Who knows if you will show me a fake account after transferring your money?”
“You are driving me crazy…” I didn't know why she was going this far for money.
“Give me about 50 million won for now. And 10 million won for today and send me 5 million won every month.”
“…What?” I thought I heard her wrong. I glared at her in astonishment and asked, “Where are you going to use all that money for?”
I wanted to know why she was requesting such a large sum. Of course, I knew her family didn’t have much money in the first place. They used to but my aunt wasted it all away. She lost a huge sum by getting into real estate and stocks, and because of all that stress after losing money, she even dipped her hands into gambling.
And as she repeatedly squandered more money after the next, she became a person who only talked about money. But there seemed to be a reason why she was asking for such an exact amount like this out of the blue.
“…It’s none of your business.”
“I’m asking you where you are going to use it.”
“You should just give it when I ask you. What’s with all these questions?”
“Don’t be so ridiculous. Isn’t it natural that I’m curious?”
After panting in anger a few times, my aunt answered. “Minji is going to school this year.” Kim Minji was this woman’s daughter. She also had a very bad personality and temper like her.
“Ah, did she finally get into university after three years?”
“Do you even know the university she got accepted into? It’s somewhere someone like you would never be able to enter even after studying all your might!”
Hearing this, I thought Minji got into some medical school or something, but she just went to a rural college called Chung-Wee College or something. It wasn’t a school I ever heard of nor seemed like one that I wouldn’t be able to reach no matter how much I tried. It was only expected because Kim Minji had played the whole time while saying that she was preparing for her college entrance exam.
“So, you want me to pay for your daughter’s college fees and living expenses?” I asked. Kim Minji probably needed housing and school fees when going to college.
‘This is unbelievable,’ I thought. Kim Minji was someone who had treated me badly just like her aunt. She always looked down on me and hit, scratched, and stomped me. Whenever she saw me, she repeatedly told me to piss off and always went on about how my parents died because of me and generally repeated terrible insults that had no basis in reason or logic. And it wasn’t like she only told me these things when I was very young either, but after I got into middle school and was beginning to develop a self-identity of sorts.
Of course, I had the messages she sent me from that time, and I was beginning to become tired of all this. This was the last time my aunt was going to use blood relations as an excuse for me to keep listening to her.
“Hey lady,” I said, not wanting to even call her ‘aunt’. “I don’t even have a cent to give you.” This was the time for me to speak now. “And it will be the same even if I succeed in the future.”
My aunt’s face began to redden. It seemed her blood pressure was rising.
“You! Bong Tae-Yoon!” She screamed like she was trying to scare me but I continued, “I have all the evidence that you hit me since I was young.” Using my phone, I sent my aunt a couple of crucial pieces of evidence to her phone.
“I could sue you for child abuse,” I said.
But my aunt simply snorted and said, “Child abuse? Ha! You think that’s easy to prove, especially after you’re all grown up like this? Do you think I will be scared? Why don’t you try it?”
She sounded calm. It seemed she had already done her own research with the evidence that I sent her.
“Of course, I wouldn’t have brought this up if that was all to it.” Then, I sent her the messages that Kim Minji sent me and the sound file I recorded when my aunt used to beat me. The sound file was filled with sounds and effects that clearly indicated abuse and violence.
I was glad to have collected all this evidence until now. This was all the file I had desperately collected for the future when I might succeed one day and break out of this hell. I had waited for the decisive moment to use it and this was the time.
“…You crazy bastard!” My aunt got angrier.
“Sue me! You think everything would go according to your plan? Hm!”
She sounded like she wanted to catch me and kill me this very instance. “You think suing people is easy? Don’t you know how long these processes take?” It seemed she had something to believe in that she was acting like this.
“Yes, I suppose it could be difficult. But I don’t intend to only rely on the law.” I inhaled deeply and stared at my aunt again. This crazy lady was human in the end, and as one, there was something she still treasured: it was her daughter, Kim Minji. Though she had always given me cold rice, beat me up whenever she had the chance, and ordered me to do housework, she had always treasured her daughter tremendously.
“You told me she was going to Chung-Wee College this year,” I said. Because she had boasted about her daughter’s school proudly just now, it became easier for me to blackmail her. I continued, “I’m going to release all this evidence on the school’s main page.”
My aunt flinched at the mention of Minji’s name.
“Every couple of months, I’m going to upload this evidence onto the school’s page so that the issue would never die down. If possible, I’m also planning to spread it around with pamphlets.”
“College is over when she graduates…”
“And when she gets a job, I’m going to find her company and spread the evidence there.”
“And if she dates someone, I will show them this evidence. And if she marries, I will show them to her partner’s family. And if she gives birth to a kid, I will show her kid and your grandchild these files.”
In order to win over this crazy lady, I needed to attack her daughter. This was someone who already lost almost everything she possibly could. Thus, to have an effect on her, I needed to attack her daughter who still wasn’t hopeless.
“I’m going to use every means possible to make Kim Minji’s life hell.” I continued while leaning my torso toward my aunt. These days, social media sites were like a double-sided blade, and rumors spread fast. And thus, I quickly found a social media page filled with students from Chung-Wee College. All I needed to do was follow through with my threat to send the files I had as a message on this social media page.
“If I click this send button, Kim Minji’s life will become quite tiring,” I said while showing my phone’s screen to my aunt. “What will you do?”
“You bastaaard!” My aunt, who clearly had anger management problems seemed unable to bear it any longer. She clutched my head and said with bloodlust in her eyes, “You remember how I said I would kill when I met you.”
Thud. I easily pulled her fingers away from my head. Then, I met her eyes and said, “If you are going to kill me, you should kill me where the cameras can see you crystal clear.”
Hearing this, my aunt scanned the café. The spot we were at was right between the counter CCTV and the CCTV in the hallway. I thought this was going to be the climax now until I heard someone running toward me.
“Get your hands off Tae-Yoon!”
“Yeon-Hoon?” It was our team leader.
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